Customer Reviews

Hard Truth: A Novel

5 star:		(6)
4 star:		(3)
3 star:		(4)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

Lorna was only nine-years-old when her best friend, Melinda Eagen, vanished on her birthday. Everyone believed that either her mean brother, Jason, killed her or her abusive/alcoholic mother, Billie, did. However, no body or proof was ever found. Shortly thereafter, Jason disappeared too.

Twenty years later Lorna returns to Callen, Pennsylvania. Her siblings have lives elsewhere. Lorna has no husband or children and can take her business with her anywhere, compliments of her computer and being self employed. So when Lorna's mother dies, she is the logical choice to appraise the house, the contents, and all the land before selling everything. Things get complicated when Jason's remains are excavated from some land Lorna's mother had sold off a year or so ago. The local law has only circumstantial evidence and old rumors that point to Billie as the killer. But that does not keep them from arresting Billie. Then several more bodily remains of boys show up buried on that partial of land. Did Billie kill them all? Or is there a serial killer nearby?

Lorna is a lot like her mother and refuses to simply assume Billie is guilty of murdering one or both of her kids, not to mention several other unknown boys. So she hires T.J. Dawson, former FBI profiler and P.I., to investigate the matter. Needless to say, the killer is not happy with Lorna.

*** Not much suspense or tension in this story, but still well done and worth your time to read. I am looking forward to the third in this series. ***

Reviewed by Detra Fitch of Huntress Reviews.

Nine years old Melinda Egan vanished without a trace. Not long afterward her older brother Jason, a nasty youngster, also disappeared. The locals assume they just ran off.

Years later, a section of the Stiles farm is sold. To the shock of the new owner, human bones are found that are later identified as those of Jason. At about the same time Lorna Stiles has returned home to settle her late mother's estate. She is totally unsatisfied with the police investigation because she demands to know what happened to her best friend Melinda. Her friend Regan Landry introduces Lorna to former FBI Agent T.J. Dawson, a private investigator, who agrees to look into the murders especially the disappearance of Melinda. As Lorna fears a family member is a serial killer who used or perhaps still using the Stiles farm as a personal cemetery, T.J. soon believes his job is to keep Lorna safe from this murdering psychopath who he feels still lives.

Mariah Stewart is simply amazing as she has over the past few months consistently kept the quality level of her thrillers stratospherically high though she has released several novels. Her current tale, HARD TRUTH, is a fabulous romantic investigative thriller that never slows down from the moment the first corpse is found until the climax. Fans will want to read the previous tale COLD TRUTH and look forward to the next story DARK TRUTH as this is an author who provides fantastic serial killer tales that keep the audience's attention throughout.

Harriet Klausner

The story starts promisingly enough, with Lorna returning to her home after her mother dies to sell the family home which she and her siblings agree they can't keep. Instead, a dead body is discovered, which dredges up her memories of a friend who disappeared, because it's the brother's body which has been found. More bodies are unearthed, which promises an intriguing mystery, especially after she hires hunky PI T.J. to investigate.
Sadly, the story fizzles out after that. Especially after Lorna is joined by her friend Regan and her romantic interest Mitch. It becomes more Nancy Drew-ish rather than a hard-hitting thriller. Romance is hinted at but is so restrained it becomes boring. The story becomes simplistic and the conclusion is unconvincing. Disappointing considering that I really enjoyed Mariah Stewart's previous trilogy -- Dead Certain, Dead Wrong, Dead Even, which was more hard hitting and less amateurish.

Lorna Temple has come home to say goodby to her mom,who has just died of cancer and to get the family home ready to be sold. She is a CPA and can run her business from wherever she is. A few days after she gets home a body is found on the land her family sold to pay her mother's doctor bills. Then another body is found, and then another. Finally four bodies are found.

T J Dawson is a private detective, who is suggested by her friend, Regan Landry. He is a former FBI agent and since selling his agency he is between jobs and willing to help Lorna.Because of the disappearance of her best friend when she was 9, Lorna wants to find some answers. Who was killing people and burying them on her family's farm 25 years ago.

Melinda Eagen and her brother Jason disappeared when Lorna was 9 and now the bones of one of the bodies proves to be Jason's. Their mother Billie Eagen is accused by the sheriff of the murder and arrested. Lorna finds out that her mother had befriended Billie, and when she talks to her she is convinced that she didn't do it. She knew that Billie had been an alcoholic and was abusive to her children. But the loss of her kids had caused her to stop drinking and clean up her act.

Now with more bodies, the deeper Lorna and TJ dig the more questions come up. Since the sheriff isn't willing to investigate more fully maybe Lorna and TJ have to. Someone is a serial killer and he is probably still around.

I enjoyed the story and I liked the way her books keep some characters from other stories. So we have a continueing thread in each novel.

The second of four books in Stewart's Truth series, this book also stands alone. I started in the wrong order and began with Dark Truth first, so reading parts of this book felt like I could forsee where a sub-plot is going, but it doesn't take away from the greatness of the book at all.

I hope people don't pigeonhole this book as romantic-suspense, in case anyone is prejudiced that way. Stewart started out as a romance writer and has now broken out of the genre, which is good for us and for her -- her romances didn't seem that memorable.

The protagonist is a 30-something CPA coming back home to take care of the family farm house after her mom's passing. What she thought was gonna be a short but sentimental trip turned out to be an adventure, after real estate developers uncovered a dead body in the field. It only gets better from there, I don't want to spoil it for anyone who's reading, you'll see that the plot gets pretty prurient very fast. The characters are fun, the dialogue believable (down to the accent), the plotting is impeccable. A total keeper book for me.

I thought this trilogy would be tied together, like the "Dead" trilogy, with some kind of common thread...yet I saw nothing to tie this one to the first one, other than Regan Landry somehow being a minor character.

Lorna's discovery of what happened to Melinda was a bit of a letdown, and Billie really wasn't developed or focused on enough, but still a good read and worth the time.

I am an avid reader and I am not sure what to make of the other individuals' assessments of this novel. I gave it 2 stars because the writing wasn't horible, but I did not see any development in the characters or any compelling reason to become engaged in the story.

Written almost entirely from Lorna's perspective (with the exception of about 5 pages), readers are unable to see any internal dimensions to the other characters. Even when written from Lorna's perspective, there are no clear dimensions to her character either. There were attempts to provide depth to personalities, but, in my opinion, ultimately failed. Instead, I found myself unable to really care what happened to the members of the story. Most people want characters who maintain a level of complexity, whose stories evoke some sort of emotional response. These characters provided none of these things.

If you want to read a romantic suspense with no romance or suspense in it, then this is a perfect choice. Even knowing this, I wouldn't get my hopes up. Try a Nora Roberts, Suzanne Brockmann or a Tami Hoag for characters with depth and a story that compells you to not put the book down. This book just wasn't it.

What a great book for a new author. Both books she has written are great!!!

It drew me in quick enough, haven't read the others but this encourages me to check them out. Does anyone know why the back of the book refers to the character as Temple though? So odd

Much better than Cold Truth: A Novel the romance was more obvious because the characters showed more affection for each other throughout the book rather than just at the very end and actually got to know each other. Also, I felt it benefited by focusing more solely on the two main characters, with Reagan and Mitch being simply side notes instead of another set of characters vying for attention; it gave the story more time for the character/relationship development that was abbreviated in Cold Truth: A Novel. However, while it was an improvement over Cold Truth: A Novel, it suffered from the same problem of not being very passionate and not really drawing you into the story. Also, I felt the characters were a bit stupid about the killer near the end, and the whole resolution with Mellie was just abrupt and stupid *so much for "best friends."* Overall, better than Cold Truth: A Novel, but still only good enough for a rental, not to buy.